Cheap cloud servers

You can run a small project for a few dollars a month — and sometimes for free. The trick is knowing where to look and how to tell "genuinely cheap" from "cheap for a reason." This guide walks through the well-known budget VPS providers, the free tiers worth using, and how to avoid the traps.

Still deciding whether you even need a server? Read Buy a server first. If you just want the easiest way to ship, the static hosting and serverless options in Publish to the internet may suit you better.

Budget VPS comparison

These are budget VPS / cloud hosts with a solid reputation among developers. The prices are rough entry points only — they change often, so check the official site for current numbers.

Note for China-based users: hosting in mainland China and serving a website on your domain usually requires an ICP filing (备案), which takes days to weeks. To skip it you can choose Hong Kong / overseas locations, at some cost to in-country speed.

Free tiers worth knowing

You can get something running without spending anything. These free tiers are genuinely usable:

• Oracle Cloud Always Free — permanent and generous. The standout is the ARM Ampere VM: you get a decent amount of vCPU and RAM, enough to run a small backend, a database, or a personal service. Signup has some friction (card verification) and provisioning occasionally waits on capacity.
• Cloudflare Pages / Workers — very generous free tiers for static sites and edge functions, and deploys are fast. Great for front ends, APIs, and form handling. Pairs nicely with Set up Cloudflare.
• GCP / AWS / Azure trial credits — new accounts typically get a few hundred dollars over ~90 days, good for short-lived experiments or temporary services.

How to judge a cheap VPS

Cheap isn't the problem — the question is why it's cheap and where the catch is. Before buying, focus on these:

• Oversold CPU / IO — rock-bottom hosts often pack many users onto one physical machine, so CPU contention and slow disk IO are common. Look for "dedicated vCPU" labels and real benchmark numbers in reviews.
• Network quality — latency, packet loss, bandwidth, and the monthly traffic allowance to your users. Cheap plans often have tiny allowances; go over and you get throttled or billed.
• Refund policy — is there a 3–7 day refund window? A refund offer signals some confidence and gives you room to test.
• Backups cost extra — automatic backups are usually a separate charge (often around 20% of the host price). Don't forget it when totting up the real cost.
• Read recent reviews — search the provider name on a community like LowEndTalk and focus on recent threads. Budget providers change fast; a glowing review from three years ago doesn't mean much today.
• Test with a monthly plan first — don't jump straight to an annual deal to save a little. Take a monthly plan, run it for a few days, test the real performance and network, then commit to annual if you're happy.

First-boot checklist

A fresh server starts out exposed — direct root login, password auth, no firewall. Do these basics before you deploy anything onto it.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

adduser deploy
usermod -aG sudo deploy

ssh-copy-id deploy@your-server-ip

sudo systemctl restart ssh

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 80
sudo ufw allow 443
sudo ufw enable

sudo timedatectl set-timezone UTC

These are just the bare minimum first-boot steps. For the full hardening pass (fail2ban, automatic security updates, backups, monitoring, and more) see Ops security.

For wiring up your domain and HTTPS, continue to Buy a domain and Set up Cloudflare.